Creative Self-Employment - Marketing and Self Promotion Accountability

[Orvell]

*Sits down in a comfortably padded chair (imaginary of course)*

Well hello, friends...

With the creation of this new sub forum, I thought this might be a good time to not only keep myself accountable as I try to lift my creative endeavors into the realm of profitability, but to engage others in similar pursuits.

So what say you, friends? Shall we help each other out?

What are your goals and mile markers as you quest towards reaching a profitable state? How do you plan to get there? What is it that you do? Have you found an audience? What can we do for you to help you achieve your goals?


I'll go first. :)

I paint and draw and write weird little stories. I currently have a year long project hosted on Patreon that is, technically, profitable. It's going great, and I want to continue the trend once this ends.
My goals are re-vamping my website, growing my very meager mailing list, updating my Etsy and Society6 shops, and figuring out a next-step for a future project (webcomic? Patreon? Kickstarter?)

My daily/weekly/monthly marketing goals are these: mailing list newsletter 1x month; blog posts 1x week; instagram updates 2-3x week

I also write conventional short stories (i.e., ones that are at least nominally publishable) and am in the beginning stages of the submission grind. No bites, yet, but I have probably a hundred more rejection letters to collect before I'll give up.

[monstermonster]

YES, you know you made this for me, right? PR/Marketing is my struggz, as we've talked about a lot before on our journals. I LOVE accountability.

I teach personal finance to millennials. I have a glam rock comic financial workbook coming out in the late summer & I also host a weekly radio show. My business is primarily teaching "money bootcamps" at colleges and coworking spaces.

My marketing goals for this year:

• Two marketing/PR "workouts" at my "business gym" per month.
• One podcast/radio show, 40 weeks of the year (weekly with time off to plan/regroup)
• Teach 10 lead generation workshops at key target demos (mini-sessions like Lunch & Learns)
• Pitch 5 conferences to speak at
• Two Newsletters a Month
• Create add-on incentive for building my email list
• Two speaking tours (one midwest, one NE US)
• Come up with some sort of "plan" for social media
• Launch a brand refresh
• Secret project I can't talk about

[Orvell]

Haaa! WE SHALL STRUGGLE TOGETHER.
:)

I need to add an incentive to my email list, too! My current plan is for it to be a 6 page little graphic novel that will be a demo of the larger project that's next on my artistic plan. But I'm running into the problematic feedback loop of: I haven't finished the incentive (and am, in fact, many (many) hours of work away from finishing it), thus, I can't move forward with my marketing, full stop.
And since I need to put a lot of time into my *other* creative projects (this little graphic novel demo is pretty far back on the priority lists, as my other commitments have dollar values attached to them) marketing falls to the absolute rear.

Have you found a good way to break through these roadblocks that our brains artificially create for ourselves?

PS your podcast/radio show is great. <3